Love and Capital: A Family Affair

Among the new books marking the return of the“Critique of Political Economy”referred to in this blog title isLove and Capitalby Mary Gabriel. Her book puts real flesh and blood to the common cardboard cut out of Marx the negligent father who left his family to poverty and sickness as he roamed the barricades, pubs, and libraries of Europe from the 1848 uprisings to the 1870s Paris Commune. Instead Gabriel shows us the Marx story as outlined above , but as a family affair! Karl and Jenny Marx’s marriage was at it’s best when roaming

Europe one step ahead of the state police and two steps ahead of the censor. Their home life was a vibrant hive of politics, literature, language learning and hosting a continual parade of revolutionaries and intellectuals. An extremely protective father and loving husband he kindled the tremendous passions and devotion the family had to each other’s ideals. Frequent poverty, illness, and infant death were as common in the Marx homes as in those of the working classes. Not likely though that many decided to do as Dad and daughter did one tough cold ill winter to keep the mind alive at least– “let’s learn Danish together,” he said. Frederic Engels in Gabriel’s telling is not the economic benefactor of the family– he is very much a member of the family! The long time family housekeeper is also very much a member of the family. The scandal sheet version comes out when Gabriel concludes that the boy “Freddy” was not son of Engels and the housekeeper, but of Karl and the housekeeper!

All that is Solid Melts into Air

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world—and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”
Marshall Berman (1982)